Man accused of killing Officer Richard Mendez turns on associates in critical trial moment
Alexander Batista-Polanco, of Camden, identified two other men as members of a group that went to PHL to steal a car just before the 2023 shooting.
The trial of two men accused of murdering Philadelphia Police Officer Richard Mendez took a major turn Friday when another man involved in the 2023 shooting took the stand to testify against his former associates.
Prosecutors say Alexander Batista-Polanco, of Camden, rode in a stolen Dodge Durango with three other young men that October evening as they stole a vehicle at the stadium area and later headed to Philadelphia International Airport to steal yet another car.
Mendez and his partner, Officer Raul Ortiz, had just begun their shift when they came across Batista-Polanco and his associates in the Terminal D garage. The men had broken the window of a Dodge Charger and were using a tablet to program a new key fob.
Batista-Polanco waited in the Durango with Hendrick Pena-Fernandez, while Yobranny Martinez-Fernandez and Jesus Herman Madera Duran worked on the Charger.
As the officers interrupted the robbery, Mendez confronted Duran; prosecutors say Martinez-Fernandez fired a gun from inside the Charger, striking Mendez four times in the back and Ortiz once in the forearm. Mendez died from his injuries; Duran, 18, was also struck and died in a nearby hospital.
As prosecutors make their case before a Common Pleas jury that Pena-Fernandez and Martinez-Fernandez, both in their early 20s, should be convicted of murder — the former in the second degree and the latter in the first — robbery, and related charges, they touted evidence that included DNA, cell tower data, and witnesses who overheard the gunfire.
Attorneys for Martinez-Fernandez and Pena-Fernandez maintain there were no eyewitness bystanders or video footage of the shooting.
But to the surprise of some, that changed when prosecutors brought in Batista-Polanca.
The 23-year-old, speaking through a Spanish translator, answered Assistant District Attorney Cydney Pope’s questions with little emotion as prosecutors asked him to identify the men and recount what he had seen.
Batista-Polanca recognized “those two people,” he said solemnly, meaning Pena-Fernandez and Martinez-Fernandez, who sat across the room. “I met them through my friend, Jesus,” he said.
Batista-Polanca explained that before Mendez’s murder, he’d known the men for about a year. They went out that night looking for Jeeps and Chargers they could steal and sell for a profit. He said they’d worn gloves and “sheisty” face masks to conceal themselves from law enforcement. The men also put their phones on airplane mode in an attempt to conceal their location from authorities, he said.
Given the chance to cross-examine him, defense attorneys Robert Gamburg and Earl G. Kauffman peppered Batista-Polanca with questions about his credibility, suggesting he’d told the jury what prosecutors wanted him to say.
They drew attention to the favorable deal he is set to receive; in exchange for his testimony, Batista-Polanca pleaded guilty to a lower murder charge, which, in addition to other offenses, will likely award him a shorter sentence than the 80½ to 161 years he faces. Pena-Fernandez and Martinez-Fernandez face life in prison without parole.
Batista-Polanco disagreed that he’d been pressured to lie, telling Kauffman his testimony was “the truth.”
His comments confirmed details about the shooting, the frantic trip to the hospital to drop off an injured Duran, and the group’s midnight flight to central New Jersey.
Moments before the shooting, Batista-Polanca recalled hearing an officer yell, “Is that your car?” Shots then rang out from the driver-side area of the Charger, he said, where Martinez-Fernandez was crouched beneath the steering wheel.
Discovering their friend, Duran, had also been shot, the men put the teen in the Durango and sped off to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Batista-Polanca said.
They dumped the man’s body in front of an ambulance and made off for Cranbury, N.J., where Batista-Polanca said the group met with another man at a hotel before purchasing a canister of gasoline and torching the stolen Durango at an abandoned warehouse.
Batista-Polanca got a ride back to Camden later that morning. He slept at an ex-girlfriend’s house, he said.
Pope, the lead prosecutor, suggested that Batista-Polanca was risking too much to lie; she said the young man expressed fear for his life and the safety of his family in their previous meetings, given he was telling on his accomplices. He told defense attorneys he had not received any direct threats, however.
“You remain afraid for your family today, correct?” Pope asked.
“Si,” he replied.